Five academic researchers from the University of Santo Tomas delivered presentations at the 9th World Conference on Metaphysics, held at the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum (APRA) in Rome, Italy, with the theme Science and Experience Open to the Absolute, from November 3 to 6, 2025. They addressed the intersection of classical metaphysics and contemporary challenges posed by artificial intelligence and technology.
The UST delegation’s presentations, delivered during English-language sessions on November 4, formed a cohesive philosophical response to questions of technology, machine intelligence, Thomistic ethics, and human nature. Rev. Fr. Christopher P. Garinganao, O.P., Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, opened the discussion with “Synderesis, Being, and the Limits of Machine Ethics,” arguing that human beings are moral beings through their openness to being, while AI cannot apprehend being as the metaphysical ground from which moral principles arise. Drawing on Thomistic metaphysics, Fr. Garinganao contended that synderesis, the habitual knowledge of the good, is an innate human capacity derived from the encounter with being, a capacity machines fundamentally lack.
Building on this Thomistic foundation, Rev. Fr. Felix F. Delos Reyes, Jr., O.P., Ph.D., Master of Students for the Dominican Province of the Philippines and Permanent Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy, delivered “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Relational Human Person: Metaphysical Considerations.” Fr. Delos Reyes proposed that Aquinas’s metaphysical anthropology grounds relationality in being itself rather than in consciousness or affective bonds alone, outlining five metaphysical concepts: order, creation, nature, operation, and finality, to demonstrate that relationality is ontological and that to exist is to be in relation.
Complementing the Thomistic perspective, Prof. Jove Jim S. Aguas, Ph.D., of the Faculty of Arts and Letters’ Department of Philosophy, a Guest Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy, and Researcher at the Research Center for Theology, Religious Studies, and Ethics, turned to Augustinian thought in “The Relevance of St. Augustine’s Metaphysics to Artificial Intelligence.” Prof. Aguas distinguished between Augustine’s concepts of scientia (practical knowledge) and sapientia (wisdom), arguing that while AI excels at scientia through pattern recognition and data processing, it cannot achieve sapientia because it lacks self-awareness, moral responsibility, and the capacity for contemplating eternal truths.
Expanding the philosophical lens to Platonic ontology, Asst. Prof. Blaise D. Ringor, LPT, Ph.D., of the Institute of Religion, who is also a Guest Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy, Researcher at the Research Center for Theology, and Academic Collaborations Officer of the Ecclesiastical Faculties, presented “The Inversion of Theiamania Through Technomania: Platonic Ontology and Human Technocracy.” Asst. Prof. Ringor contended that modern technocracy inverts Plato’s concept of divine madness (theia mania), arguing that contemporary society treats technology as self-generated mastery rather than as a gift, displacing prophecy with prediction, purification with therapy, inspiration with mechanical reproduction, and eros with consumption.
Rounding out the UST contributions, Rev. Fr. Rudolf Seño, O.P., Ph.L, Permanent Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy and Ph.D. candidate at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome, Italy (Angelicum), presented “Metaphysics of the Separated Soul,” addressing Thomistic anthropology and Classical Thomistic Psychology in the context of contemporary debates.
The conference, organized by the Fundación Fernando Rielo, convened scholars from over 30 countries to examine metaphysics in relation to science, technology, artificial intelligence, and contemporary culture. Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, delivered opening remarks on Monday, November 3, setting the tone for four days of scholarly dialogue that concluded with closing messages from Cardinal Carlos Osoro Sierra and other prelates on Thursday, November 6.